Ask a room of Victorian clinic owners whether they're allowed to request a Google review and you'll get three confident answers, all different. It is the single most common question we're asked about AHPRA Google reviews, and the confusion is understandable — the rule people half-remember is real, but it isn't the rule they think it is.

Here is the short version. Section 133 of the National Law prohibits using testimonials when advertising a regulated health service. That is genuine, and the penalties are genuine. But it does not mean your clinic has to pretend Google reviews don't exist, and it does not mean asking for one is off limits.

The part that catches practices out sits somewhere most people never look: not in the asking, but in what you do after a review appears.

Yes, you can ask — AHPRA has said so

AHPRA has confirmed that practitioners and practices may ask patients to leave ratings or reviews on third-party sites such as Google. That surprises people who have spent years assuming the whole area was forbidden.

The reason it is permitted comes down to who controls the platform. A review a patient writes on Google sits on Google's property, not yours. AHPRA's own guidance is explicit that advertisers are not responsible for removing, or trying to have removed, testimonials published on a website or in social media over which they do not have control.

So the review existing is not your problem. That is a meaningful relief for any practice that has watched a Google listing fill up over the years and quietly worried about it.

The trap: engaging with a review may count as using it

This is the part that rarely makes it into advice on the subject, and it is the reason a well-meaning practice manager can create a problem in thirty seconds.

AHPRA's guidance cautions that a provider should take care if they choose to engage with reviews on a third-party site, as this may be considered using a testimonial to advertise a regulated health service.

Read that again with your practice's Google listing in mind. The review itself is outside your control. Your reply is not. Thanking a patient publicly for a review that praises the result of their treatment is you, the advertiser, taking that content and doing something with it.

The risk is rarely in the review. It is in the screenshot on your website, the repost to Facebook, and the warm public reply to the one that mentions a clinical outcome.

That reframes the whole question. Most practices worry about whether reviews are allowed to exist. The thing actually worth a policy is how your team responds to them.

Where the line sits in practice

Four distinctions do most of the work:

Clinical versus non-clinical. A testimonial is about the clinical aspects of care — the treatment, the outcome, how much better someone feels. Feedback about booking being easy, parking being straightforward, or reception being welcoming is a different animal. When you invite feedback, invite it about the experience of being a patient, not about results.

Their platform versus yours. What sits on Google is Google's. The moment it appears on your website, your Facebook page, or a printed flyer, it is advertising — and it is yours.

Asking versus curating. You may ask. What you may not do is filter. AHPRA has publicly warned that selectively editing reviews or testimonials may break the law — so "review gating", where happy patients are routed to Google and unhappy ones diverted to a private form, is a poor idea on two counts. It is also against Google's own policies.

Asking versus inducing. Offering anything of value for a review — a discount, an entry into a draw — is a separate problem, and it breaches Google's review policies regardless of what AHPRA thinks.

What this looks like on a Tuesday morning

For a regional practice, the workable version is unglamorous and takes about a week to put in place.

Decide what you ask for, and write it down. One sentence, used consistently by everyone on the front desk, pointing at the experience rather than the treatment. Something like: "If you found it easy to book with us, a short Google review helps other local families find us."

Decide who replies, and how. A short, neutral acknowledgement — "Thank you for taking the time" — avoids the trap that a warm, outcome-echoing reply walks into. If a review discusses clinical care, the safest reply is often no reply at all.

Never republish. If someone suggests putting a glowing Google review on the home page, that is the moment to say no. The same words that are fine on Google become advertising the second they land on a site you control.

And keep your listing itself accurate, which is a separate job from reviews and arguably a larger one — we've written about getting a Google Business Profile working for a regional Victorian practice.

Worth being clear about

None of this is legal advice, and the National Law is enforced against the specific facts of a specific advertisement. If you are unsure about a particular page, a particular reply, or a particular campaign, AHPRA publishes a testimonial tool for exactly that purpose, and your indemnity insurer will usually review advertising at no cost.

What we would push back on is the instinct to do nothing. Plenty of good regional practices have decided the whole area is too risky and simply left their Google presence to chance — which, in a market where patients choose a clinic by looking at a map, is its own kind of risk.

The rules are narrower than their reputation. Ask properly, reply carefully, never republish, and most of the anxiety goes away.

For the broader picture on what you can and cannot say in your advertising, see our plain-English guide to AHPRA's advertising rules.

Talk to us about your clinic's local presence